NotTreading... have you seen the film The Tourist? Johnny Depp talks in Spanish in several scenes to the manager of the hotel in Venice. This was a total joy for me as they didn't point it out unlike most US films where every 'joke' has to whack you over the head. So the manager responded in Spanish, the subtitles were in English, of course, and people who don't know Spanish or Italian, or weren't concentrating, wouldn't notice. Brilliant.

Well, I always say as long as you can make yourself understood. When I first came here to Italy, I had Spanish, French and German but no Italian. Luckily I got by with Spanglish and waving my hands around while shouting.

Yes! That's exactly the issue that I'm facing. I'd like to improve my foreign language skills (my step-mother is French) but books talk about subjunctive clauses and other such oddities; I'm stumped so I end up saying the equivalent of "I am liking the beach tomorrow to go" not "I'd like to go to the beach tomorrow".

Thanks Tribpot that's a succinct explanation. My 10yo DS1 tried to explain it to me but he was confused between an adjective and an adverb. I looked it up on Wikipedia but was still confused. I find it annoying that DS1 asks me, e.g. what is a homophone of seen and I have to ask him what a homophone is. Why wasn't grammar taught when I was at school? I'll never need trigonometry again but I had to fake my way as a writer for years without knowing a dangling gerund from a subjunctive clause.

You need this to what, Brandy? (Sorry but this is Pedants' Corner, I felt obliged).

I agree with Svrider, we had to learn stuff about grammar when studying Spanish at uni that I'd never been taught in English. The lecturer insisted on teaching us it in Spanish so it was even harder to figure out what the hell he was going on about and apply it to something you already knew.

StuntNun, adverb is a way of describing doing something, so you 'posted quickly' or you 'typed slowly'.

Oh good, now I have your attention, can I point out that I know my title is wrong - on so many different levels!

Now, can anyone recommend a book - something like "xxxx for dummies", which I can read to learn about things like tenses, punctuation and similar things. The sort of important rules and guidance that I should have been taught at school, but which they singularly failed to provide.

I don't mind how basic a level it starts at; although probably something a bit more advanced than, "this is a full stop" would be appropriate.